Cultures of the Left: Manifestations and Performances

In our times of political confusion – when Leftist agendas and struggles often collapse or become appropriated by the Right – the necessity of recovering the leftist ethos of solidarity, social justice and care for the commons seems more urgent than ever. The project Cultures of the Left: Manifestations and Performances asks: How can the Left ethos be recuperated to address contemporary inequalities of class, cast, gender and race, against the backdrop of the rise of the global Right and mounting environmental crisis? How does one grapple with the complexities of the Left, its theatres and its theatricalities, its modes of activism, its subjects and its subjectivities? This collaboration has enabled a cross-cultural journey in search of the Left. While the physical journey mainly stretches from UK to India and back, on its intellectual journey this project has travelled to many more places -- past and present, rural and urban, from street to stage to the theatre and the home. More voices from different cultural, linguistic, geographical, and disciplinary backgrounds have come on board since.

There is a rich repertoire of activities, public engagements and outputs that this collaboration has been delivering including workshops and colloquia in both UK and India, and curated participations at international conferences (e.g., IFTR, PSI). The project was a special feature of the Karela International Theatre Festival (IFTOK) in 2017. The project hosted the international conference Cultures of the Left in the Age of Right-Wing Populism held at Warwick in Venice (2019) with notable speakers such as Chantal Mouffe and Nivedita Menon. During the COVID-19 pandemic the project has hosted a series of online workshops entitled Cultures of the Left in the Age of Global Pandemic. Its publications include the special issue of Studies in Theatre and Performance, “Performing the Worksites of the Left” (vol. 3/3, 2019) and the edited collection Theatre, Activism, Subjectivity: Searching for the Left in a Fragmented World (MUP, 2024). There are further activities planned to follow the release of the edited collection including the book launch in New Delhi at JNU in early February 2025. The co-editors and projects co-leads Dutt and Jestrovic have been invited to present the book as part of the international conference on Art and Activism in Belgrade (November 2024) and to take part at the prestigious Jaipur Literary Festival in India in January 2025.

The African Women's Playwright Network

The African Women’s Playwright Network developed by Yvette Hutchison has involved collaborations with playwrights like Amy Jepta from the University of Cape Town and JC Niala from Oxford University, the Theatre Arts Admin Collective, The Mothertongue Project, Caucasus of Canadian Playwright Guild, Africa Writes as part of Royal African Society, the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry and Oxford Playhouse. These collaborations have fostered staged play readings, symposia/public events, workshops, education projects and publications. This has included the ‘Breaking Boundaries: African Women Writing on the Edges of Race, Gender and Identity’ symposia held at Arts Admin Collective in Cape Town in 2017 that involved 55 women artists and theatre programmers from 8 African countries and the UK and staging excerpts for the launch of Contemporary Plays by African Women (2019), edited by Yvette Hutchison and Amy Jepta.